One of ecology's grand challenges is developing general rules to explain and predict highly
complex systems. Understanding and predicting ecological processes from species' traits …

Models describing the biotic drivers that create and maintain biological diversity within
trophic levels have focused primarily on negative interactions (ie competition), leaving …

The leaf economics spectrum (LES) provides a useful framework for examining species
strategies as shaped by their evolutionary history. However, that spectrum, as originally …

Viewing facilitation through the lens of the niche concept is one way to unify conceptual and
empirical advances about the role of facilitation in community ecology. We clarify …

Once seen as anomalous, facilitative interactions among plants and their importance for
community structure and functioning are now widely recognized. The growing body of …

Environmental gradients may influence a plant's physiological status and morphology, which
in turn may affect plant–plant interactions. However, little is known about the relationship …

Biological diversity depends on multiple, cooccurring ecological interactions. However, most
studies focus on one interaction type at a time, leaving community ecologists unsure of how …

In many regions of the world, such as Southern Europe and most Mediterranean areas, the
frequency and magnitude of droughts and heat waves are expected to increase under …

Biotic interactions can shape phylogenetic community structure (PCS). However, we do not
know how the asymmetric effects of foundation species on communities extend to effects on …

Facilitation (positive interactions among organisms) in communities has been the subject of
increasing interest for community ecologists since the mid-nineties (Fig. 1), although this is a …